Empiricism

PHIL3072, Advanced Analytic Philosophy, ANU, 2015

Jason Grossman

I know most of the links below are dead. I can resurrect them if anyone needs them. Probably.


For official information, see the course outline: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/course-outline.pdf and the Wattle site: http://wattlecourses.anu.edu.au/course/view.php?id=14200.

Essay 1 topics and rules are now available at http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/essay-topics-1.pdf. The deadline for submitting essay 1 is 5 pm on the 9th of September.

This web site is for:

  • additional readings — see below

  • the course outline (including rules and assessment details): http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/course-outline.pdf

  • lecture notes (in case anyone misses a class or loses the notes I’m handing out): http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/lecture-notes

  • a discussion board if anyone wants one.


The class representative for this course is Liam Ryan: u4845549@anu.edu.au. You can contact him if you’d like to convey your opinions about the course to the School of Philosophy (or you can talk to me, or you can talk to the head of the teaching program, Bronwyn Finnigan, or to the head of the School, Christian Barry, or you can give your opinions on the survey we’ll have at the end of semester).


General Reading

  • The online Stanford Enyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu It’s worth reading the Stanford Enyclopedia entries for all the philosophers we study.

  • Simon Blackburn — ‘Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy’ (cheap paperback; any edition is fine; or the ANU library has it online although in a weird format)

  • Bertrand Russell — ‘History of Western Philosophy’ (any edition): http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Russell%20-%20History%20of%20Western%20Philosophy.pdf — particularly good on the connections between philosophers.


Early Modern Empiricism

Required Reading

  • Galileo Galilei — ‘The Assayer’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Galileo.pdf

  • John Locke — ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’ Book 2, chapter 8: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/locke/locke1/Book2a.html#Chapter%20VIII

  • John Locke — ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’ Book 4, chapters 1-3: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/locke/locke1/Book4a.html#Chapter%20I

  • John Locke — ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’ Book 4, chapter 9: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/locke/locke1/Book4b.html#Chapter%20IX

  • George Berkeley — ‘A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge’ (Part 1, sections 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 18, 19): http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Berkeley%20-%20Commonplace%20Book%20-%20An%20Essay%20Towards%20A%20New%20Theory%20of%20Vision%20-%20A%20Treating%20Concerning%20the%20Principles%20Of%20Human%20Knowledge%20-%20Three%20Dialogues%20Between%20Hylas%20and%20And%20Philonous%20-%20De%20Motu.pdf (a good edition but with a bunch of extraneous stuff), or http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Berkeley%20-%20The%20Principles%20of%20Human%20Knowledge%20etc..pdf

  • David Hume — ‘A Treatise of Human Nature’ volume 1 part 1 sections 1-3 volume 1 part 2 section 6 volume 1 part 3 section 2 volume 1 part 3 sections 6-10 & volume 1 part 3 sections 14-16: http://www.davidhume.org/texts/thn.html (you can use the weird red box in the top right of that page to navigate to the sections you need) or https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4705/4705-h/4705-h.htm

Additional Reading

  • John Locke — ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’ Book 1 chapter 1, Book 2 chapter 2: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/locke/locke1/Book1a.html

Logical Positivism

Required Reading

  • Bertrand Russell — ‘The Relation of Sense-Data to Physics’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Russell%20-%20RelationSenseData.pdf

  • Ian Hacking — ‘Positivism’ from Representing and Intervening: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Hacking%20-%20Positivism.pdf

  • Karl Popper — ‘A note on Berkeley as a precursor to Mach and Einstein’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Popper.pdf

  • A. J. Ayer — ‘Language, Truth and Logic’, Preface and Chapter 4: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Ayer%20-%20LanguageTruthAndLogic.pdf

Additional Reading

  • Bertrand Russell — ‘The Philosophy of Logical Atomism’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Russell%20-%20The%20Philosophy%20of%20Logical%20Atomism.pdf

  • Anthony O’Hear — ‘Scientific Realism’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/O%e2%80%99Hear%20-%20Scientific%20Realism.pdf

  • Michael Friedman — ‘Carnap’s Aufbau Reconsidered’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Friedman%20-%20Carnap%27s%20Aufbau%20Reconsidered.pdf

  • Albert Einstein — ‘Remarks on Bertrand Russell’s Theory of Knowledge’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Einstein%20-%20Remarks%20on%20Bertrand%20Russell%E2%80%99s%20Theory%20of%20Knowledge.pdf

  • Carl Hempel — ‘Problems and Changes in the Empirical Criterion of Meaning’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Hempel.pdf

  • Otto Neurath — ‘Protocol Sentences’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Neurath.pdf

  • Moritz Schlick — ‘The Foundation of Knowledge’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Schlick.pdf

  • Ernst Mach — ‘The Economy of Science’ from ‘The Science of Mechanics’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Mach%20-%20The%20Economy%20of%20Science.pdf

  • C. I. Lewis — ‘The Given Content of Empirical Knowledge’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/CILewis.pdf


Quine and Carnap

Required Reading

  • W. v. O. Quine — ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Quine%20-%20Two%20Dogmas.pdf or http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html

  • Rudolph Carnap — ‘Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/CarnapESO.pdf

Additional Reading

  • H. P. Grice and P. F. Strawson — ‘In Defense of a Dogma’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Grice%20and%20Strawson.pdf

  • W. v. O. Quine — ‘Posits and Reality’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Quine%20-%20Posits.pdf

  • W. v. O. Quine — ‘On What There Is’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Quine%20-%20On%20What%20There%20Is.pdf


Theory and Observation in Science

Required Reading

  • Norwood Russell Hanson — sections from Patterns of Discovery: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Hanson.pdf

Additional Reading

  • Grover Maxwell — ‘The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Maxwell.pdf

Post-Positivist Challenges

Required Reading

  • Arthur Fine — “The Natural Ontological Attitude”: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Fine%20-%20The%20Natural%20Ontological%20Attitude%20-%20The-Shaky-Game-second-edition.pdf

  • Arthur Fine — “And Not Antirealism Either”: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Fine%20-%20And%20Not%20Antirealism%20Either%20-%20The-Shaky-Game-second-edition.pdf

Additional Reading

  • Huw Price — ‘Metaphysics after Carnap — The Ghost who Walks’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Price%20-%20Metaphysics%20After%20Carnap%20-%20the%20Ghost%20Who%20Walks%3f.pdf

  • Stephen Yablo — ‘Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Yablo%20-%20Does%20Ontology%20Rest%20on%20a%20Mistake%3f.pdf

  • Huw Price — ‘Quining Naturalism’ http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Price%20-%20QuiningNaturalism.pdf

  • Donald Davidson — ‘A Coherence Theory of Knowledge’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Davidson%20-%20A_Coherence_Theory_of_Truth_and_Knowledge.pdf

  • Donald Davidson — ‘Empirical Content’: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Davidson%20-%20Empirical_Content.pdf

  • Wilfrid Sellars — sections from Empiricism and Philosophy of Mind: http://bunny.xeny.net/empiricism/Sellars%20-%20EmpPhilMind.pdf


And finally, In Praise of Idleness, by Bertrand Russell: http://xeny.net/InPraiseOfIdleness